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To: Mats Ericsson who wrote (37)	5/26/2000 6:08:00 PM
From: Mats Ericsson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93

Cypress buys firm for Bluetooth foray Stephan Ohr SAN JOSE, CALIF. - Cypress Semiconductor Corp. announced last week it will acquire Alation Systems Inc., a privately held wireless systems company based in Mountain View, Calif. Alation maintains a portfolio of analog, DSP and RF baseband intellectual property (IP). The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The purchase of Alation-combined with the earlier acquisition of RadioCom Corp.-brings together the intellectual properties required to implement a $7 Bluetooth solution, said Cathal Phelan, vice president of the newly formed Interface Products Division. The IP includes RF transceivers, baseband processors and firmware. A number of manufacturers are exploring direct-conversion architectures as a means of eliminating the passive components ordinarily associated with 2.45-GHz RF transceivers. Some observers believe, however, that the CMOS fabrication technology will need two more generational shrinks before direct conversion becomes practical for handheld radios. Phelan declined to discuss the architecture of the Bluetooth radio under consideration at Cypress, except to say it would be fabricated in 0.25-micron BiCMOS-which ideally would eliminate many of the passive components. "You can have multiple heterodynes," said Dan McCran-ie, Cypress executive vice president, sales and marketing. He disagrees with critics who say that a $7 Bluetooth solution is not likely in the next few years. "They said USB for under a $1 was impossible-now look where we are," McCranie said. Cypress has already penetrated the cellular telephony market with low-power SRAMs, he said. With over 100 million units shipped in that industry, Cypress SRAMs may be in as many as one-fourth of all cellular handsets, he estimated. Products developed by the Interface Products Division may be able to further penetrate that market. In addition to Bluetooth, Cypress hopes to develop products for IEEE802.11 and HomeRF wireless local-area networks. Alation in fact is author of the HomeCast Open Protocol for wireless LANs. Licensees of the protocol had included National Semiconductor. eetimes.com